EasyPeasy: Limited-function Netbook, or Real Computer?

Simplifying the Linux Desktop

April 27, 2010

Netbook desktops in free and open source software (FOSS) are in a state of rapid development. Should a netbook be treated as more as a mobile device than as a laptop? Should developers assume that netbooks are used for light computing such as social networking, rather than for productivity? These are just two of the questions whose answers affect the design of any netbook desktop.

However, you would have to search long and hard to find any distribution that answers such questions as openly as the EasyPeasy distribution does in its 1.6 release candidate (RC).

An Ubuntu-based distribution begun as a collection of scripts called Ubuntu Eee in December 2007, EasyPeasy makes its design philosophy clear right from its name. If you miss the pun of "EasyPeasy" / "Easy PC," its logo is a lemon slice, visually completing the slang expression "easypeasy, lemon squeezy" for something that is very easy to do.

Moreover, if you go to the project's home page, and the first words you read are, "Your netbook is not a typical laptop,so why should you use a traditional operating system? Get EasyPeasy, the new netbook OS that makes surfing the web fast, fun and easy!" And, immediately after, the home page states, "Open source netbook OS' should not be limited to open source applications."

You may disagree with these design principals, but no one can complain that EasyPeasy is exactly what it claims to be...